I really enjoy listening to you guys talk about what you do and don't like about audio, and how we have different wants/needs and there is no one perfect answer.

For example, when I first met Steve, his setup was very clinical (anal as he likes to call it), and Fast Forwarding to today I see his gear has gotten even more musical, without losing detail. Listening to you guys makes me more aware of what I'm listening too, as I feel I was getting a bit too much on the clinical side; I had a couple friends over and they were like, "this sounds awesome, but yuck". [smiley=10.gif]

I a/b'd my Torii MK.III to the IV, to the MA and the mono's at the fest... for my tastes and at least one particular pair of speakers I have, the Torii mk.III is the cat's meow... keeper for life I think. I can make my III sound much like the IV by changing the input tubes, but I just really like the fluid resolution of the III and the treble shunt and bass dampening control of the III - flexibility is priceless and the controls on the mk.IV don't do much that my ears can detect - very, very subtle at best. I don't think I will ever part with my Torii MK.III... however... the Mystery Amp is another story. To my ears, and this goes for all Decware amps when mated to the appropriate speakers(they are all great), the Mystery Amp is not so much "better" as it is different to my ears. It paints the soundstage and images differently than my Torii. I might have to acquire a Mystery Amp in 2014... as an "addition to", not a replacement of my Torii mk.III. After talking to Steve, I did get the Jupiter upgrade to my III though - just got it back this week. Not much time on it yet at all. Though I do perceive it has changed. However, I'm not yet able to fully "quantify" & "qualify" what I'm hearing. But it has changed enough, that when I set the bass & treble controls "by ear".... I have them in different positions than I had them in before the Jupiters. First impressions say that things have improved at both ends of the frequency extremes..

Stone... I'm afraid I have fallen prey to the same fate as you - Decware has ruined me from ever listening to sand-amps in my man-cave 2-ch system for life. Even the best ss amps I've heard, sound gray, thin, bleached, "dry" to me now as compared to Decware.

I look forward to finding out how much the MA weighs? I can wait until the official web page posting.

I was thinking the same thing...but I was wondering because I want to get some Tenderfeet or Iso-Cups or the like for it.

But now you have me wondering if my glass and steel rack is going to be sturdy enough to hold it up. I've already had the big dog knock into one of the glass shelves, shearing the mount and dumping my Onkyo Home Theater receiver out the front of the rack as the shelf tilted. I have several HDMI ports that no longer work since that incident. >:( I'd hate to have that happen with the Mystery amp...I may just use this as an excuse to replace the racks with something DIY.

For some reason 60# is coming to mind...either Steve said that in the build thread, or someone through out that rough number as an example.

My MA will be firmly planted on the floor on 1/2 inch wood....in the Listening Room or in the Living Room (both rooms in basement/finished-no vibration from poured concrete underneath carpet).

Do you realize how awesome this Amplifier is? Read post #76 again about biasing. I so look forward to dialing the MA in and driving it to its threshold when desired and always at optimum.

After initial bias setup.....Steve wrote:......"because the bias of the tubes change with warm up. You need a way to adjust quickly look at the amp and see if the two tubes are drawing the exact same number of mills. If they are not, you need a simply frikin knob to turn to make them that way... all while listening to music, uninterrupted".

I'm getting to where I don't want to fiddle with my gear as much as I used to. I also like the fact that after the amp and tubes are seasoned and warmed up, I *don't* have to muck with the bias once it's dialed in.

I'm researching other improvements I can do to my setup to prep for the Mystery amps arrival. I'm seriously looking at one of those Power Plant that the guys are always talking about...

In the mean time, I'm mentally sending good vibes to the audio gods in hope they whisper in Steve's ear that it's time to assemble the first five Mystery amps....I have a birthday coming up after all (Nov 12th) and this is the biggest and *best* birthday present I've ever gotten myself.

Yes LR, I like the fact as well...once dialed in...you don't have to mess with the Quad that is in there until you replace that Quad.

I am with Steve on the Power regen stuff. Take what he is using the OA3 for in the Mystery Amp....for power cleaning/preamp....and he mentioned you can bury your Power regen's in the ground....to enrich the iron in the earth. I agree with him. I just use a Adcom 515 AC Enhancer to clean up the hash...like a TripLite does.

Now, what I have found to lower noise floor and get out of the way of the music....is my Kimber Select 1030 RCA IC & Kimber Select 3033 Speaker Cable. To revealing to use with high-efficiency Speakers.....but the Kimber Select is excellent with 86 to 92db types/1watt/1 meter (and with a great DAC front end & Amp of course). -S

PS-that Queen Link is awesome. I just recorded via DVR off of Serius Sat Radio (Dish Network)...."Tie Your Mother Down"....with my HSU MBM12 & Polk SRS SDA 1.2's in the Living Room....cranked Up FUN!

I also recorded that LORDE song....from Serius....considering it is not resolution from Redbook/per good DAC....the low end from the Synth...is sweet..... . Kids.....

It would be nice to see our MA's by mid December....were #1 & #2 on the List! Cheers, Stone

Well, believe Steve if you want, but I've used my Decware amps with and without a power regenerator and whether they have his OA3 circuit or not, they're BETTER with a regenerator and not as good without one. I'll not be without one if I can help it.

And I'm not sure I've ever heard Steve say that about power regenerators.

Reply #66 in this thread. Each to his own...nothing to get worked up about. -S

Reply #34...about the OA3...in conjunction with reply #66.

"Of course to feed the preamp stage (smaller tubes) we need to drop the voltage and the common way to do that is a high wattage resistor followed by a small capacitor. That is how the Torii Mono's were done. In this amp, I am replacing this resistor with a vacuum diode aka voltage regulation tube (OA3) which will give me the same voltage drop as the resistor but with 20 times the ripple reduction and 100% decoupling so that harmonics from dirty power grids in your city do not contaminate the pure DC power feeding your critical preamp stage. This also means that again 100% of the heat has been eliminated.

This will be the first power supply I've ever done that has zero resistors and zero chokes. It's so Zen it's scary".

I'm not worked up. It's just my own personal experience makes this sound like sales hype.

Sorry, I'm just very skeptical, and just wanted to point out that my personal experience with all other amps goes counter to that. Maybe this one is some miraculous new thing. Steve puffs so much that I am skeptical a lot these days. I love him and his work, I just could use leaner prose and milder posturing The way he writes about that amp actually steers me away from it.

Hope you get it soon and it's all you want it to be. But I bet if you put a P10 in front of it you would hear an improvement. But then again, do you need the improvement? That's the apt question I think these days.

I think there is more than just cleaning out the hash and bad harmonics to the Power Plant - having that perfectly regulated power makes everything work better, including the source (or maybe especially my digital source and all it's clocks). My power is regularly 125v to 127v. I've got a Monster Signature HTS-5100 that's signed by Mr Lee (adds more db! LOL). I've also got a lab grade Trip Lite line conditioner I picked up from an AT&T fiber optics lab (not an Isolation Transformer like Steve suggests). So I've got plenty of filter options...but I can see where the perfect sine-wave and sag-free regulation surpass simply isolating the Mystery amp and my Oppo.

Hell, at Decfest Steve had the Mystery and MKIV hooked up to the Trip Lite IS1000 for whatever that's worth.